Jeff and I recently backpacked from Onion Valley to Mount Whitney. It’s a 50 mile trail but we did 53 miles (keep reading to find out why). We finished in 4 days which is an average of 13 1/4 miles a day. It was so much fun and we saw a lot of beautiful scenery.

Day -1

We took Thursday to get organized. We went to a million different stores (probably more like 6) trying to get all the different equipment we needed. At the end of the day we realized that we could have just gone to the Army Surplus store. Although the one thing we did buy there, Jeff’s pack, broke within the first 2 hours and continued to break throughout the trip. We were able to Jerry rig it each time but it could have been a disaster.

Day 0

The drive up took 8 hours and we had to stop in Bishop to pick up our permits and bear canisters. We grabbed some grub at a pizza parlor in next to the ranger station. I got the salad bar but turns out it was a “one-trip” salad bar. Come on, when have you ever heard of a “one-trip” salad bar. I piled that plate as high as I could. They had 5 signs posted reminding every buddy that it wasn’t all-you-can-eat.

We arrived at Onion Valley around 4:00 pm. We setup our tent and campsite and went for a short 1 mile hike around the campgrounds. We went searching for fire wood and had a sweet little fire. We made apple cider. I wanted to have smores the first night but I forgot to buy the stuff for them. The live-in ranger, Bill, let us borrow his topo maps of the trail and we got a good idea of what we were in for the next couple of days. Bill was really helpful and really nice. Here are a couple pictures of our campsite in Onion Valley.

Day 1

We left from Onion Valley and headed out over Kearsarge Pass. We didn’t have watches with us so we don’t know what time we started. Right from the get go we had a 5.5 mile ascent. It probably took us 3 hours with breaks and all. The general grade was 465 feet per mile and an overall elevation change of 2,560 feet. The high point is 11,760. Here we are atop the pass.

The Kearsarge Lakes from the pass.

After the summit the weather began to change on us. We got down the switchbacks and it started to rain. We hid out, or rather tried to, under a small patch of trees for about an hour while the storm passed over. Problem was the storm stayed directly overhead but eventually it subsided. Our packs, clothes and sleeping bags were soaked.

After the downpour we had another 4 miles or so to go. We got lost however and ended up hiking an additional 3 miles. The particular junction we got mixed up at was flooded and the sign post was sitting in the middle of a 30 foot pond and the trails were washed away. We ended up at Charlotte Lake, which was beautiful but we still had to walk all the way back.

We camped out in Vidette Meadows near a small stream. We had some delicious broccoli cheese soup for dinner. Our total mileage for the day was roughly 12.4 miles. At Vidette we had our first experience of cooking with the stove and going to the bathroom in the wilderness. In the Sierra Nevadas you are allowed to have campfires below 10,000 feet, which Vidette is, and this was going to be our only chance to have one but all of the wood was wet from the afternoon’s rain.

Day 2

We packed up our stuff and headed out of Forester Pass. We were told that Forester Pass is the highest pass in the Sierra Nevadas at 13,160. It is also the highest point along the Pacific Coast Trail or PCT. The PCT is a route from the Mexican boarder to the Canadian border with a length of 2,650 miles and an overall elevation change of 300,000 feet. Crazy.

After a few hours and 6 miles of uphill climbing we got to the base of Forester Pass. We lunched with a threesome from San Francisco, Chad, Cara and Melissa (I think that was there names, could be wrong). Melissa was actually from D.C. They went by the trail name KC and the Sunshine Band. As a note, trail names have to be given to one you cannot give yourself one. Meaning they have to be earned. KC and the Sunshine Band were extremely organized and well equipped. They were hiking the entirety of the John Muir Trail which extends over 215 miles and were now at the tail end of their trip. They had been on the trail for 15 days at this point. They mentioned that a storm was coming over the pass and that they were going to try and beat it. They geared up with rain gear, including covers for their packs, and headed out. Their gear made us look like we belonged on a beach or something. Both Jeff and I were in shorts and t-shirts with light boots, we had no rain protection for our persons let alone our packs.

As this point I got severe altitude sickness and couldn’t walk more than two steps without feeling like I had to vomit. I took a break, got some water and dropped trou in the middle of no where, it was quite a humiliating experience. Jeff and I switched packs (his being about 15-20 pounds lighter) and I began to feel better. We still had about a mile and a half of straight up ascent to get over the pass and the storm was looming overhead. We trudged on until we were within a half mile of the top. Just at the point it began to hail and hail hard. Also in the distance there were a couple large lightning storms in different directions. I tried to persuade Jeff to hide out under some rocks (not really a good idea) but he insisted we make it over the pass immediately. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the remaining ascent was completely snow covered. We pushed on and eventually made the summit, tired, frozen and soaked.

A snow crossing prior to the hail storm.

Lower on Forester Pass.

We descended the switchbacks quickly and ran into KC and the Sunshine Band on the other side. They had beaten the storm and set up their tents to weather the storm. When we met with them they were packing their tent up, they probably were playing Canasta in their warm little tent while Jeff and I were getting pelted. We chatted with them for a bit and continued on our way. We had a few more miles before calling it a day. All in all it took us more than 3 hours to climb a mile and a half over Forester. We ended up setting camp in Diamond Mesa, which was gorgeous but the only water supply was snow. We had to cook, clean and wash up using only snow. It makes for a very cold morning when you have to wash your face with snow. We did however have a nice fire, it was illegal though, seeing that we were slightly above 10,000 feet but well worth it. We hiked over 10 miles but it felt like 20, most of the day was a steep incline. We ate our first MRE which was Terriyaki Chicken and rice, it was pretty good.

Our Diamond Mesa camp site.

Our “front yard” view.

Day 3

We thought today was going to be an easy downward hike but it turned out to have quite a lot of uphill. Over all we did more than 13 miles and ended up at Guitar Lake. We went through Bighorn Plateau and Sandy Meadow and past the Crabtree ranger station. This was the only day we didn’t have a pass. The ascent up to Guitar Lake took forever and felt like it would never end. When we finally arrived, much to our surprise, KC and the Sunshine Band was also camped out at Guitar Lake. We set up camp and talked with them for awhile. It had a bit of time before sunset, Jeff wrote in his journal (apparently about cheese?) and I read my horrible sci-fi book.

Our Guitar Lake campsite.

Guitar Lake at sunet.

Day 4

Our final day was our toughest. We woke up sore for the first time. The first half of the day was our steepest uphill climb yet to the summit of Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states at 14,496. It took us a couple hours to get to the pass. From the pass we were able to drop our packs and hike the last 2 miles up to the summit without them. When we arrived at the pass we found a note for us! Seems KC and the Sunshine Band were thinking about us, they left us some sunscreen and gave us trail names. I don’t have the note on me but they deemed Jeff Iceman and myself Maverick.

The final ascent to the summit was pretty easy and went fairly quick. We passed up a lot of the day hikers. At the top there is a shelter and a few really good views. Apparently Verizon gets service up there too. We hung there for a couple minutes and then began our descent.

Atop Mount Whitney.

View of Lone Pine from Mount Whitney.

The highest point in the lower 48.

Guitar Lake on the right.

We wanted to get out to the portal by 6ish and we had over 11 miles to go (I think it was around 1pm). The 11 miles down was knee jarring and it took forever. We walked mostly non-stop. The last 2 miles felt like 6. When we finally got to the parking lot and low and behold who do we run into? KC and the Sunshine Band! They told us to go get some beer from the store but just as Jeff was grabbing one from the fridge Melissa ran in and said she had gotten a ride for us into Lone Pine but we had to leave immediately. See, although we had finished our hike we hadn’t finished our trip. We still needed to get back to our car in Onion Valley which was about 45 miles away and we had no idea how we were going to do that.

We go the ride down to Lone Pine and attempted to hitch from there to Independence. After 45 minutes and a short run in with a police officer we finally got a ride. He (Ted) was really nice and actually drove us all the way up to Onion Valley (30 miles in all). Jeff, however, was slightly weirded out by him. We got to the car around 8pm and called KC and the Sunshine to see if they needed a ride back to San Francisco but they had gotten a ride to Lancaster where they planned on catching the AmTrak. Jeff wanted to drive home so we headed out. We got back around 4am.

The experience was amazing and was so much fun. I’m tired and sore but it was all well worth it. We saw some of the most beautiful scenery, met cool people and stood at the highest point in the lower 48.